BBC - History - Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday An overview of the events of 30 January 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, using archive footage and interviews. Bloody Sunday On 30 January 1972, a civil rights demonstration through the streets of Londonderry in north-west Northern Ireland ended with the shooting dead of thirteen civilians by the British Army. An official government inquiry began two weeks later but was widely considered a whitewash, leading to a fresh public inquiry in 1998 that took 12 years to report and absolved the victims of blame. Explore the history of Bloody Sunday with over 40 years of BBC archive clips. Photo: Demonstrators on a civil rights march through the streets of Londonderry before the shootings on Bloody Sunday Timeline of key events: details and archive clips 15 June 2010 More information about: Bloody Sunday On the morning of Sunday 30 January 1972, around ten thousand people gathered in Londonderry for a civil rights march. The British Army had sealed off the original route so the march organisers led most of the demonstrators towards 'Free Derry Corner' in the nationalist Bogside area of the city.

Despite this, a number of people continued on towards an army barricade where local youths threw stones at soldiers, who responded with a water cannon, CS gas and rubber bullets. As the riot began to disperse, soldiers of the 1st Parachute Regiment were ordered to move in and arrest as many of the rioters as possible. In the minutes that followed, some of these paratroopers opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen men and injuring 13 others, one of whom died some months later. Free Derry British troops had been sent into Derry as a peacekeeping force in August 1969 and had initially been welcomed by the predominantly Catholic nationalist community as a preferable alternative to what they saw as the discrimination of the local Northern Ireland security forces. The residents of the Bogside area of the city had declared it 'Free Derry' and refused to recognise the authority of the Northern Ireland government, led by a unionist majority that drew most of its support from the Protestant community. Opposition to policies such as detention of terrorist suspects without trial (internment) and the alleged rigging of electoral wards to favour Protestant voters (gerrymandering) had inspired a nascent civil rights movement across Northern Ireland.

With support for the demands of the civil rights movement so strong among local people, Derry was an obvious choice for a mass demonstration. The events of Bloody Sunday About ten thousand people gathered in the Creggan area of Derry on the morning of Sunday 30 January 1972. After prolonged skirmishes between groups of local youths and the army at barricades set up to prevent the march reaching its intended destination (Guildhall Square in the heart of the city), paratroopers moved in to make arrests. During this operation, they opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen and wounding 13 others. The dead were all male, aged between seventeen and forty-one. Another man, aged fifty-nine, died some months later from injuries sustained on that day. The wounded included a fifteen-year-old boy and a woman. Reaction and inquiries While the British Army maintained that its troops had responded after coming under fire, the people of the Bogside saw it as murder. The British government was sufficiently concerned for the Home Secretary to announce the following day an official inquiry into the circumstances of the shootings. Opinion was further polarised by the findings of this tribunal, led by the British Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery.

His report exonerated the army and cast suspicion on many of the victims, suggesting they had been handling bombs and guns. Relatives of the dead and the wider nationalist community campaigned for a fresh public inquiry, which was finally granted by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998. Headed by Lord Saville, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry took 12 years and finally reported in 2010 . It established the innocence of the victims and laid responsibility for what happened on the army. Prime Minister David Cameron called the killings "unjustified and unjustifiable". The families of the victims of Bloody Sunday felt that the inquiry's findings vindicated those who were killed, raising the question of prosecutions and compensation. Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland - Jan 30, 1972 - HISTORY.com Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland Share this: Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland Author Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland URL Publisher A+E Networks In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators are shot dead by British Army paratroopers in an event that becomes known as “Bloody Sunday.” The protesters, all Northern Catholics, were marching in protest of the British policy of internment of suspected Irish nationalists.

British authorities had ordered the march banned, and sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters, killing 13 and wounding 17. The killings brought worldwide attention to the crisis in Northern Ireland and sparked protests all across Ireland. In Dublin, the capital of independent Ireland, outraged Irish citizens lit the British embassy aflame on February 2. The crisis in Northern Ireland escalated in 1969 when British troops were sent to the British possession to suppress nationalist activity by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and to quell religious violence between Protestants and Catholics. In April 1972, the British government released a report exonerating British troops from any illegal actions during the Londonderry protest. Irish indignation over Britain’s Northern Ireland policies grew, and Britain increased its military presence in the North while removing any vestige of Northern self-rule. On July 21, 1972, the IRA exploded 20 bombs simultaneously in Belfast, killing British military personnel and a number of civilians. Britain responded by instituting a new court system composed of trial without jury for terrorism suspects and conviction rates topped over 90 percent.

The IRA officially disarmed in September 2005, finally fulfilling the terms of the historic 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. It was hoped that the disarmament would bring with it an end to decades of politically motivated bloodshed in the region. Related Videos Bloody Sunday: Ex-soldier arrested over Londonderry shootings - BBC News Bloody Sunday: Ex-soldier arrested over Londonderry shootings 10 November 2015 Read more about sharing. Close share panel Image caption Thirteen people were killed on Bloody Sunday in January 1972 and another died of his injuries some months later A former soldier has been arrested by detectives investigating the events of Bloody Sunday in Londonderry. Thirteen people were killed when British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march through the city in January 1972. A fourteenth died later. The 66-year-old is a former member of the Parachute Regiment. It is understood he is being questioned over the deaths of William Nash, Michael McDaid and John Young. The man is the first person to be arrested as part of the Bloody Sunday investigation.

He is being interviewed at a police station in Belfast after being detained in County Antrim on Tuesday morning. He is soldier J, who was one of the soldiers who appeared before the Saville Inquiry. Media captionA 66-year-old former member of the parachute regiment is arrested by detectives investigating Bloody Sunday. BBC News NI's Vincent Kearney reports. Kate Nash, whose 19-year-old brother, William, was killed on Bloody Sunday, said she welcomed the news. "I had a call this morning from the police liaison officer that deals with our family," said Ms Nash. "She said that they had arrested a soldier and that he was being questioned. She said she wanted the family to know first before it went out on the news. "She said he was being questioned in relation to the death of my brother, William and two others: Michael McDaid, John Young and the attempted murder of my father. Image caption Michael McDaid, William Nash, John Young were killed on Bloody Sunday "I started to shake. I couldn't believe it. I became very emotional. "To see a soldier even being questioned has truly shocked me. I never thought it would get to this. "There is a flicker of hope.

It's a very positive step." The officer leading the investigation, Det Ch Insp Ian Harrison, said the arrest "marked a new phase in the overall investigation which would continue for some time". In a statement, Peter Madden of Madden & Finucane Solicitors, the firm that represents most of the Bloody Sunday families, said the arrest was "a very welcome development". 'No warning' A Ministry of Defence (MOD) spokesperson said: "We are aware an ex-soldier has been arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in connection with their investigation into the events of Bloody Sunday. "It would be inappropriate to comment further on an ongoing criminal investigation at this stage." The Northern Ireland Office said: "Criminal investigations and prosecutions are a matter for the police and prosecuting authorities who act independently of government and politicians. The government cannot therefore comment on an individual case." Speaking at Stormont on Tuesday, DUP MP Gregory Campbell said that the question for investigators is whether they are "extending their investigation beyond those who were serving in the police or army on that day".

He said his party are "totally unhappy" that the arrested soldier, if convicted, could "serve a much more lengthy sentence" than paramilitaries found guilty of Troubles-era crimes because of the Good Friday Agreement's early release scheme. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Lord Mandelson told Channel 4 News: "There are perils in going back so far into history. "Perils over the evidence that is available, people's memories, people's ability to produce their own evidence and facts so long ago to present to some sort of tribunal or commission or court of law or whatever it is." Bloody Sunday was one of the most controversial days in Northern Ireland's history. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron apologised to the Bloody Sunday victims on behalf of the state , after a long-running public inquiry unequivocally blamed the Army for the civilian deaths. Image copyright Pacemaker Image caption Thousands of people gathered in Derry in 2010 to watch Prime Minister David Cameron apologise for the Army's actions on Bloody Sunday The inquiry, led by Lord Saville, took 12 years to complete and exonerated those who died. It concluded that soldiers fired the first shot and gave no warning before opening fire on the civilian marchers.

The Saville Report also found that some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to help the injured and dying. Accepting the findings of the 2010 inquiry, Mr Cameron described the killings as "unjustified and unjustifiable" and said he was "deeply sorry". Image caption Kate Nash, whose brother, William, was killed on Bloody Sunday, has welcomed the news The arrest was made by the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Legacy Investigation Branch. The specialist police team was set up to re-investigate unsolved murder cases, dating from the beginning of the Troubles in the late 1960s, up to 2004. The Legacy Investigation Branch replaced the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), shortly after an inspection report criticised the HET for treating state killings with "less rigour" than others . The branch began work in January this year, taking over the Bloody Sunday investigation along with other HET cases. Bloody Sunday | Toronto Star Bloody Sunday By Andrew Norman Tues., June 15, 2010 Soldiers that day charged into crowds of Catholic demonstrators in the city's hard-line Bogside district at the end of an illegal march that had been blocked from reaching the city hall.

The soldiers claimed to have been responding to Irish Republican Army gunfire and to have targeted armed rioters, but no soldiers suffered injuries. The year 1972 went on to become the deadliest in the four-decade conflict over Northern Ireland. The Star's front page on January 31, 1972. This file photo of Jan 30, 1972 shows soldiers taking cover behind their sandbagged armored cars while dispersing rioters with CS gas in Londonderry, Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday. (AP Photo/PA Wire, File In this Sunday Jan, 31 1972 file photo a man receiving attention during the shooting incident in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, which became known as Bloody Sunday. (AP Photo/ PA/File) Article Continued Below A British soldier drags a Catholic protester during the "Bloody Sunday" killings 30 January 1972 when British paratroopers shot dead 13 Catholics civil rights marchers in Londonderry. Shortly after, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) declared that their immediate policy was "to kill as many British soldiers as possible".

(Photo credit should read THOPSON/AFP/Getty Images) British paratroopers take away civil rights demonstrators on "Bloody Sunday" after the paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march, killing 14 civilians, January 30, 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images) A British paratrooper takes a captured youth from the crowd on "Bloody Sunday," when British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march, killing 14 civilians, January 30, 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images) Coffins of some of the dead from the Bloody Sunday violence are seen in a church in Northern Ireland on February 1, 1979. (Associated Press ) Marchers carry signs for deceased on the one-year anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" January 31, 1973 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images) Judges from the Bloody Sunday Inquiry take a break, Monday July 20, 1998, at the start of the preliminary hearing in the Guildhall, Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Walking out (from left) are New Zealander Sir Edwards Somers, Britain's Lord Saville and Justice Bill Hoyt of Canada who will hear details into events of 1972 where 13 poeple were killed by British Paratroopers.(AP Photo/Paul McErlane) Families of the victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings march from the Bogside area of Londonderry to the Guildhall holding photographs of their relatives, to gain a preview of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The long-awaited report from the Saville Inquiry, which was set up in 1998 and is estimated to have cost 191m GBP, will be announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron in the Commons today. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Megan Bradley, three, grand niece of Jim Wray, gathers with other relatives of those shot dead on Bloody Sunday in Londonderry, Northern Ireland Tuesday June 15, 2010 ahead of Tuesday's release of the long-awaited Saville report.

The British government publishes findings of investigation into Bloody Sunday, the 1972 killing of 13 Catholic demonstrators by British troops. The investigation began in 1998 and became the most expensive in British legal history as it gathered evidence from 2,500 witnesses, including troops who opened fire that day. (AP Photo/Paul Faith/PA Wire) A newspaper cutting showing the faces of victims killed on Bloody Sunday is stuck to a memorial dedicated to them, in the Bogside area of Londonderry, Northern Ireland on June 15, 2010. The Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday will be published today after 12 years and a cost of Â£190 million pounds (275 million dollars, 230 million euros), the 5,000-page report examines the events of January 30, 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, when 13 civilians were shot dead by British soldiers at a civil rights march.

AFP PHOTO/Peter Muhly Return to the blog home page Follow us on twitter @thephotodesk Bloody Sunday in Derry 1972 — AOH Florida State Board Background Information Free Derry British troops had been sent into Derry as a peacekeeping force in August 1969 and had initially been welcomed by the predominantly Catholic nationalist community as a preferable alternative to what they saw as the discrimination of the local Northern Ireland security forces. The residents of the Bogside area of the city had declared it ‘Free Derry’ and refused to recognize the authority of the Northern Ireland government, led by a unionist majority that drew most of its support from the Protestant community. Opposition to policies such as detention of terrorist suspects without trial (internment) and the alleged rigging of electoral wards to favour Protestant voters (gerrymandering) had inspired a developing civil rights movement across Northern Ireland. With support for the demands of the civil rights movement so strong among local people, Derry was an obvious choice for a mass demonstration. The events of Bloody Sunday About ten thousand people gathered in the Creggan area of Derry on the morning of Sunday 30 January 1972.

After prolonged skirmishes between groups of local youths and the army at barricades set up to prevent the march reaching its intended destination (Guildhall Square in the heart of the city), paratroopers moved in to make arrests. During this operation, they opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen and wounding 13 others. The dead were all male, aged between seventeen and forty-one. Another man, aged fifty-nine, died some months later from injuries sustained on that day. The wounded included a fifteen-year-old boy and a woman. Reaction and inquiries While the British Army maintained that its troops had responded after coming under fire, the people of the Bogside saw it as murder. The British government was sufficiently concerned for the Home Secretary to announce the following day an official inquiry into the circumstances of the shootings. Opinion was further polarized by the findings of this tribunal, led by the British Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery. His report (The Widgery Report) exonerated the army and cast suspicion on many of the victims, suggesting they had been handling bombs and guns. Relatives of the dead and the wider nationalist community campaigned for a fresh public inquiry, which was finally granted by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998.

Headed by Lord Saville, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry (The Saville Report) took 12 years and finally reported on June 15, 2010. It established the innocence of the victims and laid responsibility for what happened on the army. Prime Minister David Cameron called the killings “unjustified and unjustifiable”. The families of the victims of Bloody Sunday felt that the inquiry’s findings vindicated those who were killed, raising the question of prosecutions and compensation. Photos William N. Nash (19) John Johnston (59) The events of that day had been caught on camera by the press, who had witnessed the tragedy first hand. Images sent shock waves around the world. The events of that day also led to the fall of the Northern Ireland Parliament, Stormont. Direct rule from England was brought in following the events of Bloody Sunday. The British set-up the Widgery Tribunal to investigate the events of that day. However, it was quickly seen as a farce when many of the facts and statements were either overlooked or omitted. Because of this, Derry people never accepted the Widgery Tribunal.

Every year since 1972, the people of Derry have continued to march the same route as those who did on Bloody Sunday. Even to this day, the march is remembered with thousands in attendance. In 1997, after 40,000 people signed a petition for a new inquiry, the British Government came under tremendous pressure to reopen the investigation of the events that occurred on that day. On 29 January 1998, U.K Prime Minister Tony Blair made a statement to the House Of Commons: “…that a Tribunal be established for inquiring into a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely the events on Sunday 30 January 1972 which led to loss of life in connection with the procession in Londonderry on that day, taking account of any new information relevant to events on that day.” The Bloody Sunday Inquiry was then launched. However, none of the members of the British Paratroop regiment had ever been found guilty for their crimes, even as of today. The Dead John (Jackie) Duddy: Shot in the chest in the car park of Rossville flats. Four witnesses stated Duddy was unarmed and running away from the paratroopers when he was killed.

Three of them saw a soldier take deliberate aim at the youth as he ran. His nephew is Irish boxer John Duddy. Patrick Joseph Doherty: Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety in the forecourt of Rossville flats. Doherty was the subject of a series of photographs, taken before and after he died by French journalist Gilles Peress. Despite testimony from “Soldier F” that he had fired at a man holding and firing a pistol, Widgery acknowledged that the photographs showed Doherty was unarmed, and that forensic tests on his hands for gunshot residue proved negative. Bernard McGuigan: Shot in the back of the head when he went to help Patrick Doherty. He had been waving a white handkerchief at the soldiers to indicate his peaceful intentions. Hugh Pius Gilmour: Shot through his right elbow, the bullet then entering his chest as he ran from the paratroopers on Rossville Street. Widgery acknowledged that a photograph taken seconds after Gilmour was hit corroborated witness reports that he was unarmed, and that tests for gunshot residue were negative. Kevin McElhinney: Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety at the front entrance of the Rossville Flats.

Two witnesses stated McElhinney was unarmed. Michael Gerald Kelly: Shot in the stomach while standing near the rubble barricade in front of Rossville Flats. The Widgery Report accepted that Kelly was unarmed. John Pius Young: Shot in the head while standing at the rubble barricade. Two witnesses stated Young was unarmed. William Noel Nash: Shot in the chest near the barricade. Witnesses stated Nash was unarmed and going to the aid of another when killed. Michael M. McDaid: Shot in the face at the barricade as he was walking away from the paratroopers. The trajectory of the bullet indicated he could have been killed by soldiers positioned on the Derry Walls. James Joseph Wray: Wounded then shot again at close range while lying on the ground. Witnesses who were not called to the Widgery Tribunal stated that Wray was calling out that he could not move his legs before he was shot the second time. Gerald Donaghey: Shot in the stomach while attempting to run to safety between Glenfada Park and Abbey Park. Donaghey was brought to a nearby house by bystanders where he was examined by a doctor. His pockets were turned out in an effort to identify him.

A later police photograph of Donaghey’s corpse showed nail bombs in his pockets. Neither those who searched his pockets in the house nor the British army medical officer (Soldier 138) who pronounced him dead shortly afterwards say they saw any bombs. Donaghey had been a member of Fianna Éireann, an IRA-linked Republican youth movement. Paddy Ward, a police informer who gave evidence at the Saville Inquiry, claimed that he had given two nail bombs to Donaghey several hours before he was shot dead. Gerard (James) McKinney: Shot just after Gerald Donaghey. Witnesses stated that McKinney had been running behind Donaghey, and he stopped and held up his arms, shouting “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”, when he saw Donaghey fall. He was then shot in the chest. William Anthony McKinney: Shot from behind as he attempted to aid Gerald McKinney (no relation). He had left cover to try to help Gerald. John Johnston: Shot in the leg and left shoulder on William Street 15 minutes before the rest of the shooting started. Johnston was not on the march, but on his way to visit a friend in Glenfada Park.

He died 4½ months later; his death has been attributed to the injuries he received on the day. He was the only one not to die immediately or soon after being shot. Perspectives and Analyses on Bloody Sunday Thirteen people were shot and killed, with another man later dying of his wounds. The official army position, backed by the British Home Secretary the next day in the House of Commons, was that the paratroopers had reacted to gun and nail bomb attacks from suspected IRA members. All eyewitnesses (apart from the soldiers), including marchers, local residents, and British and Irish journalists present, maintain that soldiers fired into an unarmed crowd, or were aiming at fleeing people and those tending the wounded, whereas the soldiers themselves were not fired upon. No British soldier was wounded by gunfire or reported any injuries, nor were any bullets or nail bombs recovered to back up their claims. In the events that followed, irate crowds burned down the British embassy on Merrion Square in Dublin. Anglo-Irish relations hit one of their lowest ebbs, with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Patrick Hillery, going specially to the United Nations in New York to demand UN involvement in the Northern Ireland “Troubles”.

Although there were many IRA men—both Official and Provisional—present at the protest, it is claimed they were all unarmed, apparently because it was anticipated that the paratroopers would attempt to “draw them out”. March organizer and MP Ivan Cooper had been promised beforehand that no armed IRA men would be near the march. One paratrooper who gave evidence at the Tribunal testified that they were told by an officer to expect a gunfight and “We want some kills”. In the event, one man was witnessed by Father Edward Daly and others haphazardly firing a revolver in the direction of the paratroopers. Later identified as a member of the Official IRA, this man was also photographed in the act of drawing his weapon, but was apparently not seen or targeted by the soldiers. Various other claims have been made to the Saville Inquiry about gunmen on the day. The city’s coroner, retired British Army Major Hubert O’Neill, issued a statement on 21 August 1973, at the completion of the inquest into the people killed.[43] He declared: “This Sunday became known as Bloody Sunday and bloody it was. It was quite unnecessary.

It strikes me that the Army ran amok that day and shot without thinking what they were doing. They were shooting innocent people. These people may have been taking part in a march that was banned but that does not justify the troops coming in and firing live rounds indiscriminately. I would say without hesitation that it was sheer, unadulterated murder. It was murder.” Two days after Bloody Sunday, the Westminster Parliament adopted a resolution for a tribunal into the events of the day, resulting in Prime Minister Edward Heath commissioning the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery to undertake it. Many witnesses intended to boycott the tribunal as they lacked faith in Widgery’s impartiality, but were eventually persuaded to take part. The Widgery Report Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery quickly produced a report — completed within ten weeks (10 April) and published within eleven (19 April) — supported the Army’s account of the events of the day. Among the evidence presented to the tribunal were the results of paraffin tests, used to identify lead residues from firing weapons, and that nail bombs had been found on the body of one of those killed.

Tests for traces of explosives on the clothes of eleven of the dead proved negative, while those of the remaining man could not be tested as they had already been washed. Most Irish people and witnesses to the event disputed the report’s conclusions and regarded it as a whitewash. It has been argued that firearms residue on some deceased may have come from contact with the soldiers who themselves moved some of the bodies, or that the presence of lead on the hands of one (James Wray) was easily explained by the fact that his occupation involved the use of lead-based solder. In fact, in 1992, John Major, writing to John Hume stated: “The Government made clear in 1974 that those who were killed on ‘Bloody Sunday’ should be regarded as innocent of any allegation that they were shot whilst handling firearms or explosives. I hope that the families of those who died will accept that assurance.” Following the events of Bloody Sunday Bernadette Devlin, an Independent Socialist nationalist MP from Northern Ireland, expressed anger at what she perceived as government attempts to stifle accounts being reported about the day.

Having witnessed the events firsthand, she was later infuriated that she was consistently denied the chance to speak in Parliament about the day, although parliamentary convention decreed that any MP witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it in the House. Devlin punched Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Conservative government, when he made a statement to Parliament on the events of Bloody Sunday stating that the British Army had fired only in self-defense. She was temporarily suspended from Parliament as a result of the incident. Nonetheless, six months after Bloody Sunday, Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford who was directly in charge of 1 Para, the soldiers who went into the Bogside, was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the Queen, while other soldiers were equally decorated with honors for their part on the day. In January 1997, the United Kingdom television station Channel 4 carried a news report that suggested that members of the Royal Anglian Regiment had also opened fire on the protesters and could have been responsible for three of the fourteen deaths.

On 29 May 2007 it was reported that General Sir Mike Jackson, [then Captain Mike Jackson] second-in-command of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday, said: “I have no doubt that innocent people were shot”. This was in sharp contrast to his insistence, for more than 30 years, that those killed on the day had not been innocent. In 2008 a former aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell, described Widgery as a “complete and utter whitewash”. In 1998 Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford expressed his anger at Tony Blair’s intention of setting up the Saville inquiry, citing he was proud of his actions on Bloody Sunday. Two years later in 2000 during an interview with the BBC, Wilford said “There might have been things wrong in the sense that some innocent people, people who were not carrying a weapon, were wounded or even killed. But that was not done as a deliberate malicious act. It was done as an act of war.” The Saville Inquiry – Part 1 Although British Prime Minister John Major rejected John Hume’s requests for a public inquiry into the killings, his successor, Tony Blair, decided to start one.

A second commission of inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville, was established in January 1998 to re-examine Bloody Sunday. The other judges were John Toohey QC, a former Justice of the High Court of Australia who had worked on Aboriginal issues (he replaced New Zealander Sir Edward Somers QC, who retired from the Inquiry in 2000 for personal reasons), and Mr Justice William Hoyt QC, former Chief Justice of New Brunswick and a member of the Canadian Judicial Council. The hearings were concluded in November 2004, and the report was published 15 June 2010. The Saville Inquiry was a more comprehensive study than the Widgery Tribunal, interviewing a wide range of witnesses, including local residents, soldiers, journalists and politicians. Lord Saville declined to comment on the Widgery report and made the point that the Saville Inquiry was a judicial inquiry into Bloody Sunday, not the Widgery Tribunal. Evidence given by Martin McGuinness, a senior member of Sinn Féin and now the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, to the inquiry stated that he was second-in-command of the Derry City brigade of the Provisional IRA and was present at the march.

He did not answer questions about where he had been staying because he said it would compromise the safety of the individuals involved. A claim was made at the Saville Inquiry that McGuinness was responsible for supplying detonators for nail bombs on Bloody Sunday. Paddy Ward claimed he was the leader of the Fianna Éireann, the youth wing of the IRA in January 1972. He claimed that McGuinness, the second-in-command of the IRA in the city at the time, and another anonymous IRA member gave him bomb parts on the morning of 30 January, the date planned for the civil rights march. He said his organization intended to attack city-centre premises in Derry on the day when civilians were shot dead by British soldiers. In response McGuinness rejected the claims as “fantasy”, while Gerry O’Hara, a Sinn Féin councillor in Derry stated that he and not Ward was the Fianna leader at the time. Many observers allege that the Ministry of Defense acted in a way to impede the inquiry. Over 1,000 army photographs and original army helicopter video footage were never made available.

Additionally, guns used on the day by the soldiers that could have been evidence in the inquiry were lost by the MoD. The MoD claimed that all the guns had been destroyed, but some were subsequently recovered in various locations (such as Sierra Leone and Beirut) despite the obstruction. By the time the inquiry had retired to write up its findings, it had interviewed over 900 witnesses, over seven years, making it the biggest investigation in British legal history. The cost of this process has drawn criticism; as of the publication of the Saville Report being £195 million. The inquiry was expected to report in late 2009 but was delayed until after the general election on 6 May 2010. The Saville Inquiry – Part 2 The report of the inquiry was published on 15 June 2010. The report concluded, “The firing by soldiers of 1 PARA on Bloody Sunday caused the deaths of 13 people and injury to a similar number, none of whom was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury.” Saville stated that British paratroopers “lost control”, fatally shooting fleeing civilians and those who tried to aid civilians who had been shot by the British soldiers.

The report stated that British soldiers had concocted lies in their attempt to hide their acts. Saville stated that the civilians had not been warned by the British soldiers that they intended to shoot. The report states, contrary to the previously established belief, that no stones and no petrol bombs were thrown by civilians before British soldiers shot at them, and that the civilians were not posing any threat. The report concluded that an Official IRA sniper fired on British soldiers, albeit that on the balance of evidence his shot was fired after the Army shots that wounded Damien Donaghey and John Johnston. The Inquiry rejected the sniper’s account that this shot had been made in reprisal, stating the view that he and another Official IRA member had already been in position, and the shot had probably been fired simply because the opportunity had presented itself. Ultimately the Saville Inquiry was inconclusive on Martin McGuinness’ role, due to a lack of certainty over his movements, concluding that while he was “engaged in paramilitary activity” during Bloody Sunday, and had probably been armed with a Thompson submachine gun, there was insufficient evidence to make any finding other than they were “sure that he did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire”.

Regarding the soldiers in charge on the day of Bloody Sunday, Saville found: Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford was commander of 1 Para and on the day was directly responsible for arresting rioters and returning to base. However, Wilford ‘deliberately disobeyed’ his superior Brigadier Patrick MacLellan’s orders by sending Support Company into the Bogside (and without informing MacLellan). Brigadier MacLellan was operational commander of the day. The Saville Inquiry cleared MacLellan of any wrongdoing as he was under the impression that Wilford would follow orders by arresting rioters and then returning to base, and could not be blamed for Wilford’s actions. Major General Robert Ford was Commander of land forces and set the British strategy to oversee the civil march in Derry. Although Saville cleared Ford of any fault, he found Ford’s selection of 1 Para, and in particular Wilford to be in control of arresting rioters, to be disconcerting, specifically as “1 PARA was a force with a reputation for using excessive physical violence, which thus ran the risk of exacerbating the tensions between the Army and nationalists”. Major Ted Loden was the commander in charge of soldiers, following orders issued by Lieutenant Colonel Wilford.

Saville cleared Loden of misconduct, citing that Loden “neither realized nor should have realized that his soldiers were or might be firing at people who were not posing or about to pose a threat”. In short, the inquiry found that Loden could not be held responsible for claims (whether malicious or not) by some of the individual soldiers that they had received fire from snipers. The Saville Inquiry – Part 3 Captain Mike Jackson (later General Sir Mike Jackson) was second in command of 1 Para on the day of Bloody Sunday. Saville cleared Jackson of sinister actions following Jackson’s compiling of a list of what soldiers told Major Loden on why they had fired. This list became known as the “Loden List of Engagements” which played a role in the Army’s initial explanations. While Saville found the compiling of the list was ‘far from ideal’, he accepted Jackson’s explanations based on the list not containing the names of soldiers and the number of times they fired. Saville had concluded that Lance Corporal F was responsible for a number of the deaths and that a number of soldiers have “knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing”.

Intelligence officer Colonel Maurice Tugwell and Colin Wallace, (an IPU army press officer) were also both cleared of wrongdoing. Saville believed that the information Tugwell and Wallace released through the media was not down to any deliberate attempt to deceive the public but rather due to much of the inaccurate information Tugwell had received at the time by various other figures. Major Michael Steele was with MacLellan in the operations room and was in charge of passing on the orders on the day. Saville accepted that Steele could not believe other than that a separation had been achieved between rioters and marchers, because both groups were in different areas. Reporting on the findings of the Saville Inquiry in the House of Commons, the British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Mr Speaker, I am deeply patriotic. I never want to believe anything bad about our country. I never want to call into question the behavior of our soldiers and our army, who I believe to be the finest in the world. And I have seen for myself the very difficult and dangerous circumstances in which we ask our soldiers to serve. But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities.

What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.” Photo A10 Photo A11 A Bandage and a baby’s vest are pictured at the Museum of Free Derry against a photograph of Michael Kelly. The items were used to stem the flow of blood after Michael was shot by a British soldier.. (PETER MUHLY/AFP/Getty Images) Photo A12 Pallbearers carry one of 13 coffins of Bloody Sunday victims to a graveside during a funeral in Derry, Northern Ireland, following requiem mass at nearby St. Mary’s church at Creggan Hill on Feb. 2, 1972. About 10,000 people shared in the funeral services. British soldiers shot dead 14 catholic protesters in Northern Ireland on Jan. 30. (AP Photo) Photo A13 uneral services of the Victims at St. Mary’s church at Creggan Hill on Feb. 2, 1972. Photo A14 Funeral services of the Victims at St. Mary’s church at Creggan Hill on Feb. 2, 1972.

Photo B01 Thousands of Catholics march in a peaceful civil rights demonstration in the Northern Ireland town of Newry on Sunday, Feb. 6, 1972. The rally is in protest against the British government’s policy of internment and against the shooting of 14 civilians in Derry the previous Sunday. The rally was peaceful and there was no confrontation with thousands of British troops stationed in the town. (AP Photo/Michel Laurent) Photo B02 Armed British troops patrol a neighborhood in Derry, Northern Ireland, in Feb. 1972, following the deadly shooting of 14 demonstrators by British paratroopers during the civil rights march on Jan. 30, known as Bloody Sunday. (AP Photo/Michel Laurent) Photo B03 Catholic youths rush away as a gas canister explodes in their midst during disorders in the Bogside district of Derry, near the scene of the “bloody Sunday” killings earlier in the month. Youths had used nail bombs and gelignite to attack British armored cars (in the foreground, left) during the late afternoon clash. Troops hit back with a hail of rubber bullets and C.S. gas.

(AP Photo) Photo B04 A young child, resting on a man’s shoulders, holds a hanging effigy of a British soldier during a march in Belfast, capital of Northern Ireland, Feb. 1972. The rally follows the deadly shooting of 14 demonstrators by British paratroopers during the civil rights march on Jan. 30, known as Bloody Sunday. (AP Photo/Michel Laurent) Photo B05 Two women cover their faces with handkerchiefs to protect themselves against teargas fired by British police against rioting youth in Derry City, Northern Ireland on February 20, 1972. (AP Photo) Photo B06 British actress Vanessa Redgrave reads a poem during a Sunday service in Derry’s predominantly Catholic Bogside section, on January 29, 1973. The event is marking the anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” of January 30, 1972, when British paratroops shot 14 Catholic demonstrators to death following a civil rights march.

(AP Photo) Photo B07 Nationalist residents of the Creggan estate of Londonderry display large pictures of the victims of Bloody Sunday along the route where marchers commemorating the 25th anniversary of the event follow the route of the anti-internment protest of Jan. 30, 1972 from the Creggan to Free Derry Corner Sunday, Feb. 2, 1997. Thirteen men were shot dead by British paratroopers who believed they were under fire and another man died later from his injuries in the event which escalated the sectarian violence in the British ruled province. At rear is the River Foyle and is the city of Londonderry at left. (AP Photo/ Paul McErlane) Photo B08 A general view of the Bogside area of Derry City where the Bloody Sunday killings took place in 1972. This photo was taken on June 14, 2010.

(Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Photo B09 A general view of Ebrington Barracks, where the 1,000 British troops were garrisoned in 1972, are seen in Derry City on June 14, 2010. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Photos Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday Report Released (AP) — Relatives of the Catholic demonstrators shot to death by British troops on Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday cried tears of joy on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 as an epic fact-finding probe ruled that their loved ones were innocent and the British soldiers entirely to blame for the 1972 slaughter. The investigation took 12 years and nearly 200 million pounds ($290 million), but the victims’ families and the British, Irish and U.S. governments welcomed the findings as priceless to heal one of the gaping wounds left from Northern Ireland’s four-decade conflict that left 3,700 dead.

Thousands of residents of Derry City – a predominantly Catholic city long synonymous with Britain’s major mass killing from the Northern Ireland conflict – gathered outside the city hall to watch the verdict come in, followed by a lengthy apology from Prime Minister David Cameron in London that moved many locals long distrustful of British leaders. The probe found that soldiers opened fire without justification at unarmed, fleeing civilians and lied about it for decades, refuting an initial British investigation that branded the demonstrators as Irish Republican Army bombers and gunmen. Cameron, who was just 5 years old when the attack occurred, said it was “both unjustified and unjustifiable.” Photo C01 Families of the victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings march from the Bogside area of Derry City to the Guildhall holding photographs of their relatives, to gain a preview of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Photo C02 Members of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign march with banners depicting the victims of the shootings on their way to the Guildhall to hear the findings of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010 in Derry City, Northern Ireland.

(Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Photo C03 Families of the victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings arrive at the Guildhall after marching from the Bogside area of Londonderry holding photographs of their relatives, to gain a preview of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010 in Derry City, Northern Ireland. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Photo C04 A person carries a copy of the long-awaited Saville Inquiry report into Bloody Sunday, after relatives of the victims read the first copies, outside the Guildhall on June 15, 2010 in Derry City, Northern Ireland. The long-awaited report from the Saville Inquiry, which was set up in 1998 and is estimated to have cost about 200 million pounds ($290 million), was announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron in the Commons and stated that all victims were innocent. (Photo by Paul Faith – WPA Pool/Getty Images) Photo C05 A general view of the crowds of people outside the Guildhall in Derry City at the announcement the findings of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010.

(Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images) Photo C06 Closeup view of the crowd of people outside the Guildhall in Derry City at the announcement the findings of the Saville Report on June 15, 2010. Photo C07 Relatives of the 1972 Bloody Sunday victims react after leaving the Guildhall in Derry City, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, June, 15, 2010. More than 1,000 Derry residents applauded, hugged and cried outside city hall as the long-awaited verdict was announced live on a huge television screen. They had campaigned for 38 years for the victims – originally branded as Irish Republican Army bombers and gunmen – to have their good names restored and the guilt of the soldiers who shot them proved beyond doubt. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison) Photo C08 John Kelly, the brother of Michael Kelly, who was shot dead on Bloody Sunday in 1972, reacts with relatives of other victims, after leaving the Guildhall in Derry City, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, June, 15, 2010.

(AP Photo/Peter Morrison) Photo C09 Crowds celebrate the findings of the long-awaited Saville Inquiry report into Bloody Sunday, after relatives of the victims read the first copies, outside the Guildhall on June 15, 2010 in Derry City, Northern Ireland. The long-awaited report from the Saville Inquiry, which was set up in 1998 was announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron in the Commons and stated that all victims were innocent. (Photo by Paul Faith – WPA Pool/Getty Images) Today in Irish History, Bloody Sunday in Derry, 30 January 1972 | The Irish Story Today In Irish History John_Dorney 29 January, 2012 Irish History , Today In Irish History T he fatal shooting of 13 unarmed demonstrators by the British Army in Derry in 1972. By John Dorney. See also Four Bloody Sundays . In January 1972, a march was called by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in for Sunday January 30th in Derry. Its purpose was to protest against internment without trial, which had been introduced in August of the previous year.

The city was already in a state of low-intensity conflict . Since 1969, when Catholic protests against discrimination within Northern Ireland had exploded into a three day riot with the police known as the Battle of Bogside , British troops had patrolled the streets. The Catholic working class Creggan and Bogside areas were sealed off with barricades and behind them, in so called “ Free Derry “, two rival IRAs, the Officials and Provisionals patrolled in hijacked cars, shooting at any British troops that entered the area. Ten soldiers had died in the city already. Rioting between troops and what they referred to as the “Derry young hooligans” was also a regular occurrence. Derry was already in a state of low intensity conflict in early 1972, but the mood on the morning of the march was peaceful The British Army for their part had already shot dead two local youths, Seamus Cusack and Desmond Beatie, in July 1971 whom they accused of being armed, an accusation vigorously denied by locals. Another four civilians were killed by the Army by the start of 1972.

As the Saville Inquiry acknowledged, “The situation in Londonderry in January 1972 was serious. By this stage the nationalist community had largely turned against the soldiers.” [1] All political demonstrations had been banned in Northern Ireland the previous August, “until order was restored” . Nevertheless when the march, on January 30, 1972, started out in the Creggan, as Dr Raymond McClean remembered; “the atmosphere was so relaxed and cheerful that I decided to leave all my equipment in the car in the Creggan as I thought there would be no casualties to treat.” [2] ‘A scoop-up operation’ The RUC Chief superintandant wanted a non-confrontational approach to the march but was over-ruled by the British military commander The Royal Ulster Constabulary police force (RUC), had if anything an even worse relationship with the nationalist population of Derry at the time than the Army, being seen as the force behind the Protestant domination of Northern Ireland. But had their advice been followed, the march might have gone off as peacefully as Dr. McClean predicted.

The local RUC Chief superintendant, Frank Lagan wanted to allow the march enter the city centre unmolested, to take pictures of rioters and if necessary pick them up later. But since 1969, it was the military who had primary responsibility for public order in Northern Ireland. Major General Robert Ford wanted, by contrast, to oppose the march leaving Creggan and entering city centre, with the intention of arresting “young hooligans” … “a scoop up operation to arrest as many hooligans and rioters as possible”. [3] He had deployed for the operation one of the British Army’s elite combat formations, the 1st Parachute regiment. Even more ominously, Ford had recently written a memo to his commander in chief, Harry Tuzo, in which he expressed the view that the minimum force required to deal with the “Derry Young Hooligans” was, “after clear warnings, to shoot selected ringleaders”. [4] A Bloody Ten Minutes. Although the march had been banned, it mostly passed off peacefully after Army barricades prevented the 15,000 marchers from leaving the nationalist Bogside and passing into Derry’s city centre.

A small number of youths, as was common in Derry in those disturbed times, began to throw stones at the soldiers. The response of the British troops varied considerably. Some units, the Royal Green Jackets, “acted with restraint”, in the words of Saville Inquiry and used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon on the stone-throwers. Some shots were also exchanged; two soldiers of Machine Gun Platoon, fired between them five shots from the derelict building on William Street– wounding two men. In retaliation a member of the Official IRA fired a rifle at soldiers, without causing casualties. [5] But it was 1 Para that was charged with “scooping up” large numbers of rioters in arrests. Their Brigadier, MacLellan, gave strict orders for them not to follow the youths down Rossville Street, where they would be mixed up with peaceful marchers. Colonel Wilford, who was directly in charge, failed to pass on this order and sent his Support Company, in armoured vehicles, chasing the rioters down into the maze of terraced streets and flat complexes.

Eamonn McCann a radical Derry leftist who had been behind much of the original protest movement in the city recalled; The soldiers fired 100 shots from their SLR rifles killing 13 people and injuring a similar number “When the shooting started that day the first reaction, after fear, was bewilderment. Why were they shooting? At Free Derry Corner where most people had gathered for the meeting, the crowd flung themselves to the ground as the crack-crack of the self-loading rifles came from the bottom of Rossville Street. Looking up one could see the last few stragglers coming running panic-stricken, bounding over the barricade outside the High Flats, three of them stiffening suddenly and crumpling to the ground. One ought to have realized at the time that what was happening was they were being killed.” [6] McCann’s disbelief was understandable. While the Paras had been sent to Derry to mount an aggressive arrest operation and possibly even “shoot ringleaders”, of the rioters, no one anticipated indiscriminate firing on unarmed crowds.

The British soldiers, in an unfamiliar area, surrounded by people they believed to be hostile, were panicked by fire from one of their own officers, named in the Saville report as “Lieutenant N”, who fired over the heads of the crowds to disperse them. The soldiers, hearing the sound of shots echoing off the surrounding buildings thought they were coming under fire and began indiscriminately to shoot at the people around them. Five died on Rossville Street and the rest were killed as soldiers pursued the fleeing crowds into the neighbouring flat complexes. [7] McCann again; “An hour and a half later no one knew for certain how many were dead. Some said three, some five. From McCafferty’s house in Beechwood Street Bernadette Devlin phoned Altnagelvin Hospital and asked for the names of the casualties. About 20 people crowded around her into the hallway as she prepared to write them down. The pushing and shoving stopped as she just kept on writing.

[He heard]… how Jacky Duddy had been just behind Father Daly in the car park of the High Flats, laughing to see a priest running when the bullet got him; how Pat Doherty had been lying out in the open moaning, ‘I don’t want to die on my own’, and Barney McGuigan, a big quiet man, had gone out to him waving a white handkerchief and was shot in the base of the skull; how John Young had been dragging himself, wounded in the shelter of the barricade across Rossville Street towards the door of the flats, people screaming down at him, come on lad, come on, you’re nearly there’, but he didn’t make it.” [8] Dr Raymond McClean, who had set out on the march so optimistically, found himself searching the nearby houses for casualties, “In the first house I found Michael Kelly …and lying beside him Jim Wray [both already dead]… William McKinney… said to me, “I’m going to die doctor am I?” I lied a bit and said ‘you have been hit badly but if we can get an ambulance and get you to a hospital quickly I hope you’ll be alright”.

[9] The shooting had lasted only ten minutes. One company of soldiers from the Support Company of 1 Para Regiment – having stormed into the Bogside in armoured vehicles to arrest rioters – had fired 100 shots from their SLR rifles in and around the flat complexes ofRossville Street, Glenfada Park and AbbeyPark, killing 13 people and injuring a similar number. Most of the dead were young men (only two were over 40) and six were aged 17. The shooting was done by only a handful of soldiers – around ten in total. At the time, the British troops claimed they had come under sustained attack. The Army statement the following day claimed, “The troops came under nail-bomb attack and a fusillade of 50-80 rounds from the area of Rossville Flats and Glenfada flats. Fire was returned at seen gunmen and nail-bombers. Subsequently, as troops deployed to get at the gunmen, the latter continued to fire. In all a total of well over 200 rounds was fired indiscriminately in the direction of the soldiers. Fire continued to be returned only at identified targets”.

[10] The British government’s Widgery Inquiry of 1972 largely backed up this version, but the subsequent British Saville report of 2010 found, “Despite the contrary evidence given by soldiers, we have concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers. No-one threw or threatened to throw a nail or petrol bomb at the soldiers on Bloody Sunday.” There was some firing from republican paramilitaries of the Official IRA on the day, but, “nothing approaching that claimed by some soldiers and nothing that would justify them opening fire”. The Provisional IRA’s leader in Derry, Martin McGuinness, was “probably carrying a Thompson sub-machine gun” but there is no conclusive evidence that he used it on the day. Moreover, “With the exception of Gerald Donaghey, who was a member of the Provisional IRA’s youth wing, the Fianna, none of those killed or wounded by soldiers of Support Company belonged to either the Provisional or the Official IRA”. [11] Consequences The standard nationalist narrative of Bloody Sunday in 1972 is that it created the Provisional IRA and largely spawned the subsequent conflict in Northern Ireland.

Certainly the event cast a long shadow. Eamonn McCann wrote, “After Bloody Sunday, the most powerful feeling in the area was the desire for revenge. Since the deaths of Cusack and Beattie and the introduction of internment there had been mass support for the IRA, but it had been tempered with a vague uneasiness about the morality of killing people… Now…people made a holiday in their hearts at the news of a dead British soldier.” Saville wrote, with studied understatement, “What happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased nationalist resentment and hostility towards the Army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed” Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of young Catholic men and women were propelled into the ranks of both IRAs, but especially the Provisional IRA, which was gearing up for its armed campaign. The British Embassy in Dublin was burnt to the ground by irate crowds. The south was awash with belligerent rhetoric, Taoiseach Jack Lynch called the paratroops’ actions, “Incredibly savage and inhuman”. Patrick Hillary, the Irish foreign minister told a New York audience, “my one aim now is to get Britain out of Ireland”.

[12] Originally, the British Army had been deployed inNorthern Ireland as an aid to the civil power and was actually welcomed by nationalists as a more neutral force than the Northern Irish RUC or B-Specials. Now they were shooting down unarmed demonstrators. There could be no better validation of the argument that peaceful protest had run into a wall of repression and armed struggle was the only viable option. In 1971, 171 peopled were killed in political violence in Northern Ireland. The death toll in 1972, the year after Bloody Sunday, almost tripled to 479 deaths and between 2-300 were killed every year until 1977, after which the rate of killing dropped sharply but continued to hover at or just under 100 a year until the ceasefires of 1994. [13] The Stormont Parliament of Northern Ireland was suspended, partly in response to the Derry shootings, by the British Government on March 28, 1972 and Direct Rule from London was introduced, which lasted until the new Northern Ireland Assembly was established under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, in 1999.

Bloody Sunday, tragic event as it was, speeded up the dynamics of a conflict already underway. Was Bloody Sunday really to blame for all this? A few words of caution are necessary here. The Provisional IRA was already preparing for an onslaught on what it thought of as the British occupation of Ireland. Bloody Sunday gave them more activists and sympathizers but their course of action was already set. The loyalist paramilitaries would have responded as they did, with sectarian killings of Catholics, with or without Bloody Sunday. The British Army for its part later admitted that in its early years in Northern Ireland, it conducted a counter-insurgency campaign using the methods of colonial wars fought in places such as Aden and Malaysia. In the early 1970s, the Army was too ready to treat the Catholic or nationalist population as the enemy and killed many civilians, mostly Catholic, in these years (though not as many as either republican or loyalist paramilitaries). In a two day period in August 1971, for instance 11 Catholics, this time in Ballymurphy in Belfast were shot dead by the British Army during arrest operations.

[14] Another five were shot in Springhill in Belfast in July 1972. It did learn lessons and killed far fewer people from the late 1970s onwards, but its relationship with the nationalist population was permanently poisoned. In short, Bloody Sunday, tragic event as it was, speeded up the dynamics of a conflict already underway. Without doubt it contributed to the extraordinary length of the Troubles as well. But the continuation of the killing was also a result of choices taken on all sides. References [1] See Saville Report, Eamonn McCann, War and an IrishTown, Pluto Press 1993, p145-146. A total of 19 people had died violently in Derry in the year before Bloody Sunday, all but one since the introduction of internment in August 1971. They were; 10 British soldiers (9 killed by the IRA and one in an accident), 2 RUC officers killed by the IRA, six Catholic civilians shot by the British Army and one IRA member killed by the British Army. CAIN chronology .

[2] Patrick Bishop Eamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA, Corgi 1988, p207 [3] Bishop, Mallie, p206 Bloody Sunday: who else could be arrested? - Telegraph Defence Bloody Sunday: who else could be arrested? The Police Service of Northern Ireland has said it intends to question seven former soldiers as part of its murder inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972. A memorial in Londonderry to those killed on Bloody Sunday Photo: AFP By Gordon Rayner , Chief Reporter 6:02PM GMT 11 Nov 2015 Follow Following the arrest of L/Cpl J, a 66-year-old former Para who was involved in Bloody Sunday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has said more arrests will follow. L/Cpl J became the first member of the British armed forces to be arrested over the killing of 14 people at a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972 when he was held on Tuesday. Here we profile the key players who were criticised by the 12-year-long Saville Inquiry into the killings.

Colonel Derek Wilford Col Derek Wilford The man in charge of 1 Para was criticised by the Saville Report for going beyond his orders to round up trouble-makers and protect the public. It said: "It appears to us that he wanted to demonstrate that the way to deal with rioters in Londonderry was not for soldiers to shelter behind barricades like (as he put it) ‘Aunt Sallies’ while being stoned, as he perceived the local troops had been doing, but instead to go aggressively after rioters, as he and his soldiers had been doing in Belfast. "What Colonel Wilford failed to appreciate, or regarded as of little consequence, was that his soldiers… would almost certainly be unable to identify anyone as a rioter." Col Wilford, 81, now lives in Belgium. Lance Corporal F The Saville Inquiry concluded that L/Cpl F killed Patrick Doherty, Michael Kelly, Bernard McGuigan and possibly William McKinney and James Wray. The soldier himself agreed that he had killed four people – Doherty, Kelly, McGuigan and a fourth man whose identity he could not be sure of.

Michael Kelly was shot while he was behind a rubble barricade in Rossville Street, Londonderry, while the others were killed in nearby Glenfada Park North. Soldier F said in his evidence to the Saville Inquiry: “The people I shot are the petrol bombers or a person who had a weapon." In the chaos of Bloody Sunday 14 people were killed Photo: Ken Mason/The Telegraph The report said: “Lance Corporal F did not fire in a state of fear or panic. We are sure that he fired either in the belief that no-one in the area into which he fired was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury, or not caring whether or not anyone there was posing such a threat." Four soldiers, E, F, G and H, were between them responsible for killing seven of the 14 people who died on Bloody Sunday, and injuring several others. Private G has since died. Private H The man who fired the most shots on Bloody Sunday, Private H is one of two suspects, together with L/Cpl F, for the killing of William McKinney, who was killed in Glenfada Park North. Private H may also have fired the first shot to hit James Wray, the report said.

He was hit twice, and the Saville Inquiry concluded that H and G fired the two shots. Like E, F and G, soldier H said he had only shot at people in possession of of or seeking to use bombs or firearms. The Saville Report stated: “In our view none of these soldiers fired in the belief that he had or might have identified a person in possession of or using or about to use bombs or firearms. William McKinney and Jim Wray were both shot in the back and none of the other casualties (with the possible exception of Daniel Gillespie) appears to have been facing the soldiers when shot. “We are sure that these soldiers fired either in the belief that no-one in the areas towards which they respectively fired was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury, or not caring whether or not anyone there was posing such a threat. In their cases (with the possible exception of Private H), it is unlikely that they fired in a state of fear or panic.” Corporal E The Saville Report said it was possible Corporal E was responsible for shooting one of three casualties next to each other at a rubble barricade – William Nash, John Young and Michael McDaid. Soldier J was arrested and questioned about the deaths of all three.

It is “probable” that Corporal E also injured another man in Glenfada Park North. John Young, William Nash and Michael McDaid Photo: Bloody Sunday Trust/PA Corporal P The Saville Report concluded that Corporal P shot at least one of the three casualties at the rubble barricade “and may have been responsible for all three”. It is also possible that he injured Alexander Nash, who was shot while he was attending to his son William. He told the Saville Inquiry he did not remember firing his rifle. A Saville Inquiry graphic shows Corporal P's position and shot trajectory Photo: Saville Inquiry Private R The Saville Report said Private R, of Mortar Platoon, was probably the soldier who shot 17-year-old Jackie Duddy, the first person to die on Bloody Sunday. A mural in Londonderry depicts Jackie Duddy being carried away by friends after he was shot Private U The Saville Report authors said they were “sure” that Private U, who had taken up a position at the northern end of the Rossville Flats, “fired at and mortally wounded Hugh Gilmour as the latter was running south (away from the soldiers)”.

The 17-year-old was shot through the elbow, the bullet then entering his chest and killing him. A graphic produced by the Saville Inquiry shows the direction of a shot fired by Private U, thought to have killed Hugh Gilmour Photo: Saville Inquiry Privates L and M The Saville Report said that either L or M shot and killed Kevin McElhinney as he was crawling south from the rubble barricade away from the soldiers. Both are thought to have fired at him. A Saville Inquiry grahic shows the shots fired by soldiers L and M Photo: Saville Inquiry Bloody Sunday investigation The arrest of a former British soldier over the Bloody Sunday killings comes more than 43 years after the incident 30 Jan 1972 Bloody Sunday Thirteen people are killed and another 14 wounded when soldiers of the Parachute Regiment open fire during a disturbance after a civil rights march in Londonderry. One of the wounded dies some months later. 31 Jan 1972 Heath announces inquiry Edward Heath, then Prime Minister, sets up a public tribunal under the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery.

18 Apr 1972 Widgery Report Lord Widgery’s report exonerates the Army, concluding the soldiers were fired upon first. It concludes there was a strong suspicion that some of those killed had been handling bombs or weapons earlier in the afternoon. Families of the dead say the report is a whitewash and begin a long campaign for a new inquiry. Dec 1974 Compensation Government says it will make compensations payments to the families of the dead "in a spirit of goodwill and conciliation". Payments range from £250 to more than £16,500. Jun 1997

Question: In which year was Bloody Sunday in Londonderry?
Answer: 1972